Many Americas.

AuthorYoung, Cathy

Don't confuse the electoral vote map with the territory.

Whether you think the Electoral College is a silly archaism that frustrates the people's will or a time-tested institution that helps preserve our republic, one thing is certain: That red-and-blue electoral map not only illustrates but dramatically inflates political, cultural, and geographic differences in the United States.

Last November, the oft-reproduced image of a vast sea of Republican red framed by strips of Democratic blue gave rise to much tall about "the two Americas." Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum have long described what they consider the "other" America in cliches that border on nasty caricature. In 2000, the nastiness seems to have escalated--perhaps because, with the election a virtual tie and the results in dispute, there were stronger-than-usual motives to suggest that the other side's votes were less worthy.

The most egregious instance of such vilification was a now-infamous November 13 column posted on MSNBC.com by Democratic strategist Paul Begala. Responding to commentator Mike Barnicle's observation that the red-and-blue map represented a cultural divide of "family values versus a sense of entitlement," Begala proposed a darker way of looking at this split: "You see the state where James Byrd was lynch-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart--it's red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay--it's red." He rattled off other awful deeds that occurred in the "red" states, from the Oklahoma City bombing to the teachings of Bob Jones University.

Later, Begala indignantly claimed that his argument was deliberately distorted and that he was trying to show how preposterous generalizations about regional character could be. But that explanation doesn't hold up; at most, Begala's original article allowed that the "red" states couldn't be reduced entirely to a hotbed of hate. The former Clinton advisor was articulating a view of flyover country that is hardly uncommon among the liberal intelligentsia. After Al Gore finally conceded the election in December, Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan sneered that the angry white males" who had backed George W. Bush could finally claim victory and "go back to their day jobs--oiling their Smith & Wessons, hectoring pregnant girls scurrying into abortion clinics, jeering at welfare mothers."

Conservative pundits have gleefully lambasted...

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